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Deborah is the first Mexican woman to graduate with a physics PhD from Stanford University. She is a physicist, author, and media personality whose initiatives to popularize science have impacted thousands of people around the world. Her passion is to popularize science and motivate young minds to think analytically about the world. This has led her to pioneer learning initiatives in schools and universities in Mexico, Africa, the US and Israel. She is a frequent public speaker and has been recognized by numerous media outlets such as Oprah, CNN, WSJ, TED, DLD, WIRED, Martha Stewart, City of Ideas, Dr. Oz Show, Celebrity Scientist and others. She regularly appears as a science expert on different international TV networks; currently she is the TV host of National Geographic’s “Humanly Impossible” show. And she will appear on the Discovery Channel’s upcoming show ‘You’ve Been Warned.’ You can find Deborah on Twitter, or on her blog, Science With Debbie. You can also find Deborah telling her story for The Story Collider.

DXS: First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?

I grew up in Mexico City in a fairly conservative community, and as a child, I was discouraged from doing and studying science. My parents, family, and peers would all ask, “oh, why don’t you study a more feminine career?” Although I was pretty good in school, I wasn’t exactly a math wizard. I used to say that I loved philosophy and physics – because philosophy was a deep discipline of asking questions about the world. And physics studied the world itself.

It was clear when I was born that my personality waswas quite different to the one of my mom. When I was growing up, my mom was scared because she didn’t know what to do with this little girl that was smart and always asking questions. She is not a naturally curious person, so she kept trying to tame down my curiosity and kept telling me not to tell boys that I was interested in math and science because I would never find a husband. According to her, the life goal for a girl was to find a husband, have kids, and that’s it. Women didn’t have to have a career. (Not that there is anything wrong with not having a career.) My high school teachers and counselors were not so different and encouraged me to go into philosophy or literature, not into math or physics. And my friends in school told me I literally had to be an out of the world genius to be able to study physics.

Given the circumstances, I started studying philosophy in Mexico. There were some classes with logic, and some with a little bit more math, and those were the ones I just devoured! And, at the same time – secretly – I was reading the biographies of scientists. For some bizarre reason, I was hugely attracted to their life stories. I didn’t have any family members, or anyone else for that matter, that had pursued a career in science, so I didn’t have a mentor or a role model. I felt an extreme kinship with Tycho Brahe, who in the late 1500’s was locked in a tower, doing all of these calculations for years, hated by everyone in the town. Go figure! I felt some kinship with these scientists. But I didn’t have the courage nor the means to switch majors. I did confess that I wanted to study another area (physics), but in Mexico one cannot study two majors. So, I studied philosophy for two years.

In the middle of it, I felt way too curious about science and I decided to apply to schools in the US. It was hard at the time because college in Mexico was a lot cheaper than in the states. At the private school where I was attending, my tuition was about $5,000 per year. If I were to come to the US, I would be looking at costs exceeding $35,000 per year. I couldn’t really ask my dad to help me with that price tag so I started to apply everywhere and anywhere that had scholarship opportunities.

I ended up getting a letter from Brandeis

University saying that they would let me take this advanced placement test and write an essay, which, if I did well, would give me a full scholarship. I received a full Wien Scholarship and was to continue studying philosophy in the US. This was probably the nicest thing that has ever happened to me because it opened the path of opportunity.

Brandeis transformed me as a person – I saw females doing science! But, the bravado moment that changed my life was a very general course called Astronomy 101. The teaching assistant, Roopesh, was a very sweet man from India and he saw that my eyes would just light up when I was in that class – I was much more curious than the random student that was just taking it to fulfill some requirement.

At the end of that year, Roopesh and I

were walking around Harvard Square and stopped to sit under a tree. I started to tell him, with tears in my eyes, that I just don’t want to die without trying. What I meant by that is I don’t want to die without trying to do physics. Everyone’s questioning of my decision made me question my actual ability. Everyone telling me ‘no’ hampered my development. I mean, I was good at math, but I definitely didn’t have the same background as all the kids coming in with advanced math and physics courses.

I told Roopesh that I don’t even remember how to solve the equation (a+b)2 – even my algebra was rusty! But, he believed in me and went back to his professor and told him my story. This professor decided to meet with me and ends up telling me about someone who had done this sort of thing in the past. His name was Ed Witten and he went on to become the father of string theory.

He said “Witten had switched from history to physics, and I will let you try too.” With that, he handed me a book on vector calculus called ‘Div, Grad and Curl’ and told me that If I could master it in three months by the end of the summer, they would let me switch my major to physics and also let me bypass the first two years of course work. This would allow me to graduate by the time my scholarship ran out.

I have never in my life experienced the level of scientific passion condensed into such a short amount of time and I am jealous of the person I was that summer. I had so much perseverance and focus. I don’t think I can ever reproduce that intensity again. From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep, and even in my dreams, I only thought about physics. Roopesh, who became my mentor for the summer, taught me.

I always wanted to pay Roopesh for his tutoring, but he would never accept any money. He told me that when he was growing up in the mountains of Darjeeling in India, there was this old man who would climb up to his home and teach him and his sisters English, the musical instrument Tabla, and math. Roopesh’s father always wanted to pay the old man for his tutoring, but the man always declined. The man said that the only way he could ever pay him back was if Roopesh did the same thing with someone else in the world. And by mentoring me, Roopesh fulfilled his payment to the old man.

Out of that, that became a seed for my physics journey and purpose. It is now my life’s mission to do the same for other people in the world – especially women – who feel attracted to science but feel trapped. They for some reason, whether it is social, financial, etc., just can’t find the way toward science. That is the motivation that dictates my actions.

I was able to pull it off and graduated Brandeis Summa Cum Laude with highest honors in physics and philosophy. I went back to Mexico afterwards to figure out what to do next and to spend some time with my family. At the same time, I did a master’s degree in physics at the largest university in Mexico UNAM. My curiosity for physics didn’t diminish and in 1998, I randomly applied to two physics PhD programs in the US. I applied very, very late, but, fortunately, I won a merit-based full scholarship from the Mexican government who provided me with funding, which made it easier for me.

Because I loved biophysics, I did a search on who was doing this line of research. I came across Steven Chu, who is currently the secretary of energy. At the time I was applying, he was at Stanford and was one of the first to manipulate a single strand of DNA with his ‘optical tweezers.’ To me, his story was fascinating! Without really knowing who he was other than what I found on the web, I wrote him an email asking him if I could work in his lab. Had I known who he was – that he had just won the Nobel prize in 1997 – I would have been too intimidated.

I was admitted to Stanford and was invited to work with Dr. Chu, but after two years I decided to switch labs. As expected, it was a very challenging environment and having only studied two years of physics at Brandeis, I wasn’t as prepared as most of the other students. I struggled for the first two years. Everyone worked so extremely hard at Stanford and there I was, struggling to be the best, but, in the beginning, I couldn’t even be average.

Fast forward four years. I had worked my butt off and ended up becoming the first Mexican woman to graduate with a PhD in physics from Stanford. It was the best day of my life – I kept thinking that I was so blessed to have my parents live to see this! It was so moving, I was crying so much and I couldn’t believe what had happened. My friends had flown in from all over the world to be with me. It was amazing.

When people hear what I do, they – especially teenage girls – feel intimidated. But, when they hear the whole story, their tune changes. I tell them that I know what it is like to not understand something. I was not the kind of person where comprehension of my science came naturally. But I did it. And if I can do it, anyone can do it! My story can be inspirational to someone who comes from a background completely lacking in science because they, like me, can reach their goal.

DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?

I was always a very curious girl growing up. I had a lot of interests, one of which being theatre. I wanted to be an actress when I was young, but my father didn’t let me pursue that as a career, which was probably a good idea. But, during high school, I went to an after school drama program. I wrote my own plays – three of them – and performed one of them. I was in heaven when I was on stage.

In NY, I have tried to do a little bit of that. Of course, I’ve never done any big roles, but I will be an extra in a film, or if there is a small production being made in Spanish, I will play a part. It doesn’t matter how big the role is – I just love doing something creative and getting into a character.

DXS: What types of productions and/or films have you done?

I don’t think I would come up in the credits as an extra, but I did a movie with Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst and Megan Fox in the movie “How to lose Friends and Alienate People.” It was a very, very fun film! In theatre, Jean Genet, who is a French playwright, has a play called The Maids, and I was the madame.

DXS: Do you find that your scientific background informs your creativity, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?

Debbie talking to the TEDYouth audience about waves.

I have a concept that I call “physics glasses.” And what I mean by that is, for me, physics is not a subject that you just teach in a complex way in a classroom. Rather, physics is something that is related to everyday life. From the moment you wake up, you can just put on your physics glasses. It is a mode of thinking – it is a way where although reality can be very rich and diverse, physics goes very deep and it abstracts commonalities, general principles that apply to many things. To give you an example, I asked the kids in the audience of my TEDYouth talk, “what do the sun, the ocean, and a symphony orchestra have in common?” When just looking at them on the surface, there isn’t much in common. I mean, they are all beautiful things but they are not obviously related. But, to a physicist, they are all waves. You have sound waves, light waves, and water waves and you can interchange many of the concepts in physics to explain all three.

Where most of us see the world with our eyes through light waves, other might see the world differently. Take, for example, my friend Juan, who is blind. He “sees” the world with sound waves – he senses sound as it bounces off the objects around him. Through this, he can bike, play basketball, and do a load of activities using sound as a guide. This is one of my favorite analogies because, really, physics “infects” the way I see the world.

Deborah the Physicist model

To give you a more specific example in the creativity realm, when I got to NY, I felt really un-feminine. When I was studying physics, I felt that if I was even slightly feminine, I wouldn’t be respected. It didn’t help that some of the other women in the physics program at Stanford were more of a “guys girl,” always wearing a baseball cap and t-shirts. Now, since I am Latin, I first showed up wearing a skirt to class, but I quickly learned to dress down. Looking feminine would assure that no one would talk to me in class.

So, when I got to NY, I had an explosion. I wanted to know what it was like to express myself as a woman and my friend suggested that I do some modeling. So I did. It was a brief, lasting about a year. But during that time, my friend, who was a designer from Mexico, asked me to work with her and I wrote and did some videos about the physics of fashion, which also included the physics of high heels video.

Some people could consider fashion to be superficial, but not me. I love fashion and color. But, other scientists generally looked down upon you for liking this sort of thing. This fueled my desire to prove to everyone that there actually is science everywhere, including fashion, and that they shouldn’t be snobs about it. There is complex science in how different materials work, how they interact with the environment and you can prove to the women, like my mother and friends back home who think that science has nothing to do with their everyday lives, that it has EVERYTHING to do with it. So I talked about a Newtonian theory for color – how to pick the right color for you based on how much light the color would reflect on that day, etc.

DXS: Like a more sophisticated version of colors based on your “season?”

DB: Exactly!

I also did pieces on the materials, including some of the newest engineering accomplishments with fabric. For example, I hooked up with a woman and helped her to design a fashionable and very scientific coat. It ended up costing $11,000, but it was made up of nano fibers and it had a patch in it that could detect the temperature and the probability of rain. Based on this probability, it could change permeability of the fabric. It was a very light coat that was comfortable in nice weather, but when it would rain, it would become impermeable to water once it detected a high probability of rain, transforming into a raincoat.

DXS: That’s incredible! I wish it wasn’t $11,000!

DB: Yeah, that’s usually the problems with these technologies. They are often so novel, but one day I’m sure we can figure out how to make things like this scalable.

Science is very much what guides my thinking when I am being creative and I wish I had more time to do creative things while being influenced by a scientific mindset.

DXS: It is so cool that physics has such an incredible overlap with everyday living. Like, when we take a shower, I want to know “how is the water getting pumped from the ground or through pipes and make its way out of the showerhead?” But, as a biochemist, I often find it hard to relate everyday things to biochemistry, but I would like to!

DB: Its funny that you say that. When I try to teach girls that the worst thing they can do is memorize. Critical thinking is so important and they shouldn’t take anything at face value, and they should even question teachers and authoritative figures in their lives. Always ask: what goes into making this? Why is this here? Why is it this way and not another? Constantly ask questions. That s the gift that physics will give you.

DXS: Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently–either more positively or more negatively?

Without saying I am a scientist, I can tell you that people have come up to me and told me that before they even hear me speak, they think I am dumb. They are usually surprised that I am smart! I think it is because I am bubbly and friendly and that often makes an impression as being unintelligent. For them it seems that if a woman is intelligent, she is very cold and distant and serious.

I’ve met a lot of physicists, and yes, some of them do tend to be that way, often as a reaction to how others treat them. Or, people would say to me that, because I am Latin, my cultural identity comes across as being warm and the last thing they’d expect me to be into was something as cold as physics. So yeah, I have definitely been judged so many times!

It even happens in my current job on Wall Street, especially with my male peers. When there are off site client meetings, I’m often accompanied by my male sales colleague. Sales people are generally required to know less about the complexities behind our risk models compared to someone on a more research-oriented role, like me and he will bring me along to these sales meetings in case the potential client has more sophisticated questions that go beyond what he can comfortably answer. Many times upon meeting the clients for the first time they think that I am the sales person, there to be the smiling face to sell them something, and that he is the risk modeler. They always direct their mathematical questions to him.

It came to a point where I became so annoyed that I decided to stop caring. Now, my sales colleague goes out for drinks with the clients and I know that I am going to be invisible. So I don’t go anymore. I know that I am always going to struggle to get the full intellectual respect in that industry – it will always be a challenge.

DXS: Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?

Yes, absolutely. For example in Mexico, unlike the US, you absolutely have to do an honors thesis project as an undergradin science. Because I had already studied philosophy for four years, I wanted to do a thesis project in philosophy. But I also wanted to do one in physics. I recall that back in 1997, when you presented a dissertation in front of the physics community, if you had any power point, forget it. You would be immediately be called dumb or not a good physicist. Because, who takes the time to do something fancy! If you had any color in your presentation, forget it!

So, literally, the smartest students in physics were people who didn’t really communicate that well, or didn’t really speak English that well, or just didn’t really make an effort. Their slides were on those overhead projector things with those rolls of plastic sheets, and most of their talks were so confusing and couldn’t be interpreted! But they were respected! It was just assumed that if the formula looked complex, they were probably right.

So what I did was completely different. I infused my talk with my spiciness and color. I did an artwork of liquid crystals, which was my research at Brandeis. Liquid crystals are little cigar-shaped molecules that actually make up the screen of your laptop. If you pass an electric field through them, they all orient themselves and that is how we can use them for displays in our laptops and TVs.

I colored these cigar-shaped molecules with purples and reds and greens, and I tried to explain it at the most basic level. This is because of one my philosophy professors in Mexico, who told me that if you cannot explain what you do to your grandmother or 6 year old niece, you don’t understand what you are doing – I loved it!

And I said to myself that I shouldn’t care what they think. I pretty much expected to not gain a lot of respect from the physics department, but it had the opposite effect! I actually had one of the professors from that department come up to me and tell me that he had never really understood what a liquid crystal looked like or what it really was! He said that “finally I understand [liquid crystals] because of your drawing. Thank you!” It was incredible!

To see the effect on people and from then on, I bounced up in down, I made jokes, I put in creativity. It doesn’t always have a great effect on very serious audiences, but the younger generation is definitely appreciative. When it keeps going well, you gain confidence. And, for me, I even started wearing high heels to the next talk. When someone commented about my attire, I would counter, hey I have a PhD!

DXS: How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context?

This question is deep and a little bit of a struggle at the moment. This is because I still have that fear – when I arrived in NY, I did that short stint in modeling and I expressed myself and I would dress very creatively – just like my other girlfriends who were not scientists. But I did feel a little bit of a backlash. By that I mean that I would post a photo of myself on Facebook or something like that. They were pretty pictures, not at all seductive or provocative, and my high school mates, usually male, would write me saying: “I always knew you as a serious person and you have achieved so many things – I am just telling you for your own good that this can really damage your image.” That made me reply with “so you’re telling me that being smart is actually kind of a bummer?” That actually means that I have to dress very differently from what other women wear for the rest of my life?

I remember feeling very upset about all of that. I think that not being taken seriously is still a little bit of a fear of and I think my website has damaged my serious image a little bit. As a scientist, I was very secluded from the outside world. I didn’t have a lot of friends when I moved here, but I did know an amazing and powerful woman who happened to be the CEO of Blip TV. She was insisting that I do videos! So she invited me to her place and showed me how to do video. Being the quick woman that she was, she asked me to make up a name for myself on the spot. When I didn’t answer, she instantly coined “The Science Babe” for me. I was like, sure, what a cool idea!

It was kind of a cute name, but because English is not my first language, I don’t always understand some of the cultural connotations associated with some English words. A few months later, I started to get a few emails from mothers who were upset that I was using my looks. They would say things like “Are you saying that women have to be in the kitchen or wear short skirts to be scientists?” I would answer that no, that was not it at all. I would further explain that I was trying to change the definition of “babe.” If you are smart, if you are empowered, you will be a babe no matter how you look. I am trying to shift what people think of when they think “scientist.”

I don’t feel quite successful with The Science Babe. It seems like there are quite a few people, especially some from the older generation, who say that they’d love to introduce me to fancy science organizations but are worried that the name “the science babe” will make it difficult. Also, I had the BBC wanted to talk to me about doing a TV show in NY, and then they said but there’s so much bad stuff out there about you! And I was like, what do you mean? They answered “All these things with the “science babe” brand…”

It doesn’t happen all the time, but some people are really critical about the science babe theme, citing that its way too feminine. Other female scientists that haven’t gone that route have perhaps discounted my seriousness about science. They assume that what I am doing is not really that important because I do focus on the science everyday life, which is simpler, and it is too much color and too much vivaciousness for our field. I feel like my femininity has decreased over the last few years because I’ve been too nervous about not being taken seriously. It s almost like the balance tipped the other way. I feel like perhaps I’ve feminized things to a fault and now I want to appear more serious. So, I am changing my website to “Science With Debbie” because I really felt the backlash.

It is a struggle to find the balance between being able to express my femininity and presenting myself in a way that people will take me seriously. In a way, I wish I had a little more courage to not care that much about what people have to say about the science babe but, unfortunately, agents have told me that if I don’t go to the “dumbed down version of femininity” I would get better speaking engagements. Being feminine has literally affected my career, and it’s because of other people’s perceptions. I’m never going to be bland, but I will try to change things so I am more serious

DXS: Do you think that the combination of your non-science creativity and scientific-related activity shifts people’s perspectives or ideas about what a scientist or science communicator is? If you’re aware of such an influence, in what way, if any, do you use it to (for example) reach a different corner of your audience or present science in a different sort of way?

The fact that I am approachable and pretty down to earth has allowed me to reach corners of society that more distant and fancy scientists would never even consider. For instance, I am going to a small university to give a talk. Some of my friends ask why I even bother, especially considering that this insitution is not the most renowned university. But, I feel the opposite – it is these corners that need the influence the most! Similarly, when I go to Hispanic high schools, many of the mothers have never seen a scientist. And there I am, a scientist from Mexico, speaking to them and their kids. It is that powerful combination of being a smart and warm female that can be shocking, which is cool.

In line with this, there was an experiment where women were asked to draw a female scientist. Most drew a plain, relatively unattractive woman. Immediately when you break that mold, it has an incredible effect. People say, “Hey! She kind of looks like me and she dresses like me. Maybe I can do science too!” Some girls are afraid that by being smart, boys won’t talk to them. My femininity allows me to be a voice in a field that has tended to isolate themselves from the public, which is bad. Some of my colleagues have become a little snobbish. The fact that I have serious credentials (PhD and 2 postdocs) shows that I had to work like crazy – looks and personality can only go so far. It s hard work that gets you there! Serious science communication has a lot of math and problem solving in order to explain things accurately to the public. So I still feel like I am doing science!

Karyn Traphagen is the Executive Director of ScienceOnline Inc., a non-profit organization representing a diverse science community that cultivates conversations both online and face-to-face. At face-to-face events, including a perennially popular signature conference in North Carolina, ScienceOnline encourages creativity, collaborations, connections, and fun. Through social media, the ScienceOnline community listens, supports, shares, recommends, and reaches out. ScienceOnline also develops tools such as ScienceSeeker news river and curates The Open Lab, an annual anthology of the best science writing on the web.

Karyn previously taught physics at the high school, undergraduate and graduate levels. As a teacher, she sought to connect the science of the curriculum with the everyday life of her students and to instill lifelong skills for learning. Karyn completed graduate work at the University of Virginia and also studied at the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa). She has trained physics teachers through the University of Virginia’s Physics department and traveled to South Sudan to conduct professional development training for local teachers. She has more than 10 years of experience developing and teaching online courses.

In addition to her science work, Karyn maintains a freelance graphic design studio. Her latest project was a work on Ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions.

Karyn lives in Durham, North Carolina, and she encourages readers wherever they are to Stay Curious at her blog. Connect with her on Twitter or Google+. You can also follow ScienceOnline on Twitter and Google+. [Editor’s note: Karyn is also an official ADK46er, which is pretty incredible.]

DXS: First, can you give me a quick overview of what your scientific background is and your current connection to science?

Karyn enjoys creating art with…LEGOS!

I remember one of my favorite childhood gifts was a chemistry set and a microscope. My mother was a great role model. She left a job as a chemist to get married and raise a family, but she always instilled in me the attitude that if I was interested in any subject, I could learn it and do it. I always accepted a challenge.

Although I attended excellent public schools, I had to overcome some significant challenges. Our family was one of the only ones in our town designated as eligible for the new free lunch program, and I started high school when Title IX was passed (go ahead, do the math). This was an exciting time for girls in school–but not just for sports (our legacy to our 8thgrade class was a change in our public (!) school policy to allow girls to wear jeans).

I was thrilled to be the one of two females on our Math League squad and to have access to advanced science courses and labs in high school. It seems I always took a circuitous route though. I helped change the rules so that I could graduate in 3 years. I was very fortunate to have lots of opportunities after graduation (including being recruited for the first female class at West Point). But then, I took on other responsibilities and went back to school later to finish my degrees.

In addition to research, I have taught high school physics and physical science, undergrad physics (I especially liked the Physics for Non-Science majors!), and helped to develop a degree program in the university physics department for high school physics teachers. I’ve led sailing trips in the Bahamas for biology students and I’ve been trained by the American Meteorological Society to use live data in classrooms. I’ve even been a programmer. Obviously I’m interested in too many things for my own good.

Currently, I am the Executive Director of ScienceOnline, a non-profit organization that facilitates discussion about science through online networks and face-to-face events. We welcome all to the conversation – scientists, journalists, librarians, educators, students, and anyone interested in engaging in science. Four words that help to define ScienceOnline are: Connections, conversations, collaborations, and community. We also develop projects that work to connect scientists and their research to the public. I’m thrilled to be representing this thriving community, and I enjoy working with so many talented, brilliant, and fun people.

Karyn has traveled to South Sudan to conduct professional development training for local teachers.

DXS: What ways do you express yourself creatively that may not have a single thing to do with science?

I have an insatiable thirst to learn and try new things, which has resulted in a string of very diverse jobs. Over the years my creative activities (and jobs) have included medieval calligraphy, art, photography, mathematics (I count this as creative), LEGO creations, graphic design, garment creation, gardening, construction projects, violin/guitar (as musician and also instructor), studying ancient languages and writing systems (both real and created).

On the surface, many people think these are not “science-y” but really, they are all about science. Seeing that connection is something I love to introduce people to. My science career has included research that helps create more bio-fidelic crash test dummies (I worked with cadavers–this makes for great party stories), meteorology, high school physics teacher, and university physics instructor. I used to think that people would think I was flighty or unable to commit to a project. Now I see the benefits of having been successful at so many different skills and fields of study. The key was seeing how they all tapped into my curiosity and creativity.

DXS: Do you find that your scientific background informs your creativity, even though what you do may not specifically be scientific?

Definitely. Paying attention to the details of the world gives me opportunity to see beauty, symmetry, order, and chaos in unusual places. I am thrilled by the macro and the micro vision of our universe and lives (which is why I continue to study other fields of science in addition to physics). These are not only realms to explore with experiments, but to experience emotionally and to communicate creatively. I have learned to appreciate the details in science and that carries over into the art, photography, design, and construction projects that I may spend time on. Even my tattoo (snow crystals) reflects both beauty and science (and a lot of personal meaning too!)

DXS: Have you encountered situations in which your expression of yourself outside the bounds of science has led to people viewing you differently–either more positively or more negatively?

I think that sometimes the more conventional creative side of my life makes me seem more “human” and approachable. When non-science people ask what I do, I don’t usually start with “physics” in the answer because that often is hard for people to relate to and the conversation dies. But if they get to know some things I am interested in or the diversity of things I’ve created, and THEN learn about my science background, they are more likely to perceive me as more than a physics geek. At that point they feel more comfortable asking questions about science.

On the other hand, some of my science colleagues in the physics department saw those other activities as something that took me away from time that could be spent on physics. Even if they thought my non-science activities might be amazing they minimized their value. Thinking back now, maybe this is why I keep so much of what I do to myself and it takes time to draw out of me all the things that I have had the joy of learning and doing.

I think there is a geek aspect to many of the things I like to do. They don’t completely overlap with the same brand of geekiness though. It’s just that you align yourself with a community that is very engaged in a certain niche. A tribe if you will. Some of these tribes don’t understand each other very well, so I sometimes feel like an ambassador of the various communities I am a member of.

DXS: Have you found that your non-science expression of creativity/activity/etc. has in any way informed your understanding of science or how you may talk about it or present it to others?

Karyn collecting water samples in Molokai, Hawaii

Yes, I used to focus more on the narrow aspects of my field. Now I try to see interconnectedness—not only with other fields of science, but more broadly with day-to-day life. My “non-science” expressions are really gateways into understanding the science better or being willing to think more creatively about how to solve a research problem. Bottom line: I always want to stay curious. We don’t value curiosity enough. I think curiosity undergirds creativity. Curiosity doesn’t just beget science questions. We also have to ask, “What would happen if I mixed these colors together?” or “How small can I write with this pen nib and ink?” or “What kind of effects can I create in this photograph by changing the lens?”

DXS: How comfortable are you expressing your femininity and in what ways? How does this expression influence people’s perception of you in, say, a scientifically oriented context?

I really tried to think about this carefully. In the physics department at the university where I worked, my main concern was not the fact that I was in the minority (or that there were more men’s rooms in the building), but that the lab was freezing and I needed to keep warmer layers at work to survive! Basically, the lab protocols determined what kind of clothing and shoes I could wear, how I kept my hair (out of the way!) etc. I never felt those things were anything particularly against being feminine, but I didn’t go out of my way to wear makeup or dress special.

On the other hand, I do think that female visitors and students who dressed more feminine were definitely treated differently. I desperately wanted to be valued for my ideas and work ethic and not what I looked like or which bathroom I used, so I was probably more affected by others attitudes than I realize(d).

Probably the most feminine thing I’ve ever done was to have children and show my priority for them (I realize that there are fathers who do this too, so it may be more a parent thing than a feminine thing, but in the society I live in, it is still the mothers who bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for child-rearing). I had colleagues who could not understand some choices I made because of family. They felt I was wasting my potential (whatever that means!).

Now that I am not in a lab and don’t have small children at home, I alternate between tomboy and professional attire. I do like that it is easier to create a more feminine professional wardrobe these days.

I find it odd that women are complimented for their appearance more than men. I don’t think people realize how out-of-balance this is. I try to notice and mention men’s clothing and appearance as a small step toward equalizing that.

DXS: Do you think that the combination of your non-science creativity and scientific-related activity shifts people’s perspectives or ideas about what a scientist or science communicator is? If you’re aware of such an influence, in what way, if any, do you use it to (for example) reach a different corner of your audience or present science in a different sort of way?

I think that getting the attention of whatever audience you are addressing is paramount. You may have something wonderful to share, but if you don’t have their attention, it will fall to the ground. I want to develop a relationship with people in order to get them to trust me, believe me, and be interested in what I have to say. Dispensing information is not enough.

The manner in which I communicate makes all the difference in how the person will engage the topic. To do this, I need to listen first and understand who my audience is. Using creativity, I will then try to connect with each person or audience in a way that I hope will best bring them along the journey I have experienced. Some people will want to know more specific details, others will want to know how it affects their lives, and still others will challenge and question my thoughts and methods.

Using visual arts (e.g. fine arts, video, etc) can be as important as a data chart. As long as the conversation continues, then I have been successful in communicating. My goal is to make someone (whether a researcher or a teenager) so interested that they will take on a search for more information on their own. That’s really how we learn and retain best—to explore something we have invested our own time in.

I also use a variety of outlets for communication. There are definitely important and different roles for journals, conference presentations, Twitter, blogs, Google+, etc. These diverse outlets are just as important as creative ways of presenting material. Again, you must always be aware of your audience. I would use a museum’s Twitter account to communicate differently than I would my regular account.

DXS: If you had something you could say to the younger you about the role of expression and creativity in your chosen career path, what would you say?

Knowing myself, I’m not so sure that the younger me would listen to any advice I would give! In some ways, going through the experiences is what made me who I am and there are no short cuts for that. However, there are definitely things that would have been great to learn earlier on.

So, I would tell the younger me not to try to keep creative interests and career objectives separate or think that they have to be at odds with each other. They don’t need to be in competition for your attention. Creativity, job skills, life experiences, and responsibilities can interweave. You will not only be more content, but probably more productive in all your endeavors.

I would also tell her that “no” is not a dirty word and that it is ok to be selective in how you spend your time.

Featured today are 10 more women who broke boundaries by their presence in physics. They lived from 1711 to 2000. While I again limited information to one paragraph, I tried to highlight how they got their start, what universities, family members, and scientists were supportive of them. For these women, without the support of fathers, mothers, husbands, and mentors (all male with one exception) their life in science would not have happened. While barriers are not as difficult today as they were at the times these women made their way, it is a testament to what can be done when families and scientists support each other. These women are an inspiration and I hope you look up more information for them. In addition, I’d love to hear who your favorite women in science are in the comments.

Laura Bassi (1711-78) lectured on science until a few hoursbefore her death. An Italian scientist of international fame and one of the first women physicists in western history, Dr. Bassi earned her doctorate in philosophy and science through public debate from the University of Bologna. The University of Bologna offered Dr. Bassi a position in an effort to be known as a leader in women’s education. Unfortunately, this forward step was not acceptable to much of the rest of the world’s academic community and required stipulations to Dr. Bassi teaching. However, she countered these limitations with determination and passion. Her appointment to full membership in the Bendettini Academics also deterred some naysayers of Dr. Bassi’s involvement in research and teaching. In order to further her career, she married. A married woman could achieve more than a single woman at that time. Her death in 1778 was unexpected, especially as she had participated in an Academy of Sciences lecture on a few hours before.

Margaret Eliza Maltby (1860-1944) was a recognized scientistand advocate for women in science.She overcame the education offered to women by taking extra courses in order to attend Oberlin College and receive a B.A. She studied with the Art Students’ League in New York City to explore her interest in art and then taught high school before enrolling as a “special student” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), receiving her B.S. Oberlin recognized this extra effort by awarding Dr. Maltby an M.S. She became a physics instructor at Wellesley College. She was encouraged in her graduate students by an AAUW fellowship to attend Göttingen University, which culminated in Dr. Maltby being the first American woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from any German university. Dr. Maltby worked as an instructor, a researcher, and administrator in many universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad. Her stature as a scientist was acknowledged with her entry in the first edition of AmericanMen of Science. She also was active in the AAUW, advocating for women to gain education and enter scientific fields. After her retirement from university life, she maintained her interest in the arts.

Irène Joliot-Curie (1897-1956) was a Nobel Prize Laureate for “artificial radioactivity.”Born to the woman every person thinks of as the epitome of a woman in science, Marie Curie, Irène had an extremely close relationship with her paternal grandfather. Her schooling was outside of the standard schooling type, her first years at home and her latter years in a science and math heavy co-operative school of Madame Curie’s colleagues. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the Collège Sévigné and went on to study at the Sorbonne. She received her doctorate in 1925 based on work with her mother at the Radium Institute of the Sorbonne. She married Frédéric Joliot, another research assistant of Madame Curie’s. Dr. Joliot-Curie continued her research, interrupted by a stint as Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research, one of the first high government posts to be offered to a woman. She worked as a professor for the Sorbonne and director of the Radium Institute, but was not admitted to the Academy of Sciences due to discrimination despite her work. She died, like her mother, of acute leukemia. Her scientific work was complemented by her love of physical activity and motherhood.

Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898-1979) was a woman with an amazing number of firsts. Born to a widow, she was a world citizen in her formative years, attended high school at a private school in New York City, won a scholarship to attend Bryn Mawr, and graduated second in her class there. She received her Master’s degree from the University of Chicago, then headed off to work with Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir at General Electric (GE) and becoming the first woman research scientist there. She was able to work with Nobel Laureate Sir Ernest Rutherford and earn her Ph.D. from Cambridge University as the first woman to earn a doctorate from Cambridge. She returned to GE. During her career, she invented many applications and is credited with six patents. She achieved much when many women did not, but her work was de-valued in the media. She did earn recognition from her peers, including the ACS Garvan Medal, the Photographic Society of America Progress Medal, and a day named after her in her hometown of Schenectady, NY. In addition to her scientific life, she enjoyed gardening, civic engagement, acting, and “dart[ing] about Lake George in a fast motor boat.”

Astrophysicist Charlotte Emma Moore Sitterly (1898-1990) was an authority on sun composition. She started her career as an excellent student with extracurricular interests, attending Swarthmore College to earn her B.A. Upon graduation, she accepted a position as a mathematics computer at Princeton University Observatory, one of the few employment opportunities available to science inclined women at the time. A stint at the Mount Wilson Observatory led to results published a 1928 monograph which was considered the authoritative work on the solar spectrum for four decades. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1931. Her work earned her the Annie J. Cannon Prize, Silver and Gold Medals from the Department of Commerce, and several honorary doctorates in the U.S. and abroad. She was the first woman elected foreign associate by the Royal Astronomical Society of London. Her enthusiasm for her work continued until her death.

Nuclear Physicist Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906-1972) was the second woman to win the physics Nobel. Her early education was public education for girls followed by a private school founded by suffragettes. Circumstances led Dr. Goeppert-Mayer to take her exiting exams a year early, passing them she attended the University of Göttingen for her college education in mathematics. She continued to study physics at the University of Göttingen, earning her Ph.D. in 1930. She also married that year. The couple moved to America in hopes of better career trajectory for Dr. Goeppert-Mayer. Finding a position was difficult. When she had her first child, she stayed home with her for one year, then returned to research. While her positions were always part-time and not well recognized, she grew a well-respected network of collaborators. This network led to work with Hans Jensen which won her the Nobel Prize, shared with Jensen. Her network also eventually led to a full professorship position after 20 years of volunteer work. During this time, her health began to fail. She persevered with her work, publishing her last paper in 1965. The American Physical Society established an award in her honor in1985.

Gertrude Scharff Goldhaber (1911-1998) was a respected researcher.She grew up in a time in Germany where girls were expected to become schoolteachers. She had a fascination with numbers, and eventually studied physics at the University of Munich, receiving her PhD in 1935. She fled Germany during the rise of the Nazis due to being Jewish, arriving in the United States and becoming a citizen in 1944. She had a wide involvement in the various National Laboratories studying nuclear physics. She also maintained several committee positions in the science community. She was also a strong advocate for women in the science community, forming a Women in Science group at Brookhaven National Lab and supporting other similar groups elsewhere. After her retirement from research, she continued interests in the history of science, outdoor activities, and art.

Physicist, Molecular Spectroscopist Leona Woods MarshallLibby (1919-1986)Leona Woods grew up on a farm and was known for her inexhaustible energy. She attained her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Chicago when she was only 19 years old, and earned her PhD 5 years later. She worked as the only woman and youngest member of the Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, a secret war group led by Enrico Fermi who built the world’s first nuclear fission reactor during her graduate work. Dr. Woods’ expertise was essential to the undertaking. She married another member of her team. She hid her first pregnancy until 2 days before her son’s birth. She took one week off before returning to work. Childcare was provided by her mother and sometimes Fermi’s bodyguard, John Baudino. Dr. Marshall was encouraged by Fermi as a female physicist. In the late 1950s, Dr. Marshall was divorced from her husband, pursuing her own career. In the early 1960s, Dr. Marshall moved to Colorado to work and married Willard Libby. Her mind was always considering any number of problems from many angles. She worked up until her death and was honored posthumously for her work, along with Lise Meitner, Marie Curie, and Irene Joliot-Curie.

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) was a foremost experimental physicist of modern era. She was encouraged as a girl to pursue her schooling as far as possible. This led her to teaching training, which lacked science so she taught herself physics, chemistry, and mathematics. She graduated high school with the highest grades in her class, earning her a place at the National Central University in Nanjing. She taught and did research upon graduation, then moved to the United States to pursue graduate studies. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California – Berkeley in 1940, four years after leaving China. She was known for her expertise in nuclear fission and was consulted by top scientists. Despite this, her gender and nationality hindered her finding appropriate employment due to discrimination on both accounts. She married and started a teaching career, although she missed research. Upon the recommendation of Ernest Lawrence, she received offers from several Ivy League schools who were not accepting female students at the time. She became Princeton’s first woman instructor at that time. She was offered several positions, including back in China, but chose to remain in the U.S. to raise her son. She was unable to return to China until 1973. She worked at Columbia for many decades and earned accolades for her work.

Xide Xie (1921-2000) is a woman in China who needs no introduction. Her early life involved much moving due to war and ill health, during which she taught herself English, calculus, and physics. She graduated in 1942 with a degree from Xiamen University. She moved to the United States to receive her master’s degree from Smith College in 1949 and her Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T. in 1951. She married in England and returned to China, despite the political climate. She taught and did research at the prestigious Fudan University. During the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, she was detained, publicly humiliated, and endured breast cancer. After this upheaval, she returned to Fudan University, growing the physics department and achieving more esteemed positions in the University and government. She had also remained connected to her family, caring for her husband through lengthy illness. Her achievements were internationally recognized.

Awards Mentioned

Benedettini Academics were a select group of scholars from the Academy of Sciences created and named for Pope Benedict XIV to conduct research and present it annually at Academy meetings. This appointment escalated the prestige of the scientist above that given by being a member of the Academy of Sciences.

American Association for University Women (AAUW): Margaret Maltby received the European Fellowship from the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which became the AAUW. This fellowship was specifically intended to help American women pursue graduate studies to circumvent rules that did not allow women to enroll in coeducational universities or earn graduate degrees.

The Nobel Prize is an international award given in several fields. It is one of the most prestigious awards for scientists in the eyes of the public.

The Garvan Medal is an award from the American Chemical Society to recognize distinguished service to chemistry by women chemists.

After decades of searching and many promising results that didn’t pan out, scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe announced Wednesday they had found a new particle. People got really excited, and for good reason! This discovery is significant no matter how you look at it: If the new particle is the Higgs boson (which it probably is), it provides the missing piece to complete the highly successful Standard Model of particles and interactions. If the new particle isn’t the Higgs boson, well…that’s interesting too.

So what’s the big deal? What is the Higgs boson? What does Wednesday’s announcement really mean? What’s the meaning of life? Without getting too far over my head, let me try to answer at least some of the common questions people have about the Higgs boson, and what the researchers in Europe found. If you’d rather have everything in video form, here’s a great animation by cartoonist Jorge Cham and an elegant explanation by Ian Sample. Ethan Siegel also wrote a picture-laden joyride through Higgs boson physics; you can find a roundup of even more posts and information at Wired and at Boing-Boing. (Disclaimer: my own article about the Higgs is linked both places, so I may be slightly biased.)

Q: What is the Higgs boson?

A: The Higgs boson is a particle predicted by the Standard Model. It’s a manifestation of the “Higgs field”, which explains why some particles have mass and other particles don’t.

Q: Whoa, too fast! What’s a boson?

A: A boson is a large mammal indigenous to North America. No wait, that’s bison. [Ed note: Ha. Ha. Ha.] On the tiniest level, there are two basic types of particles: fermions and bosons. You’re made of fermions: the protons, neutrons, and electrons that are the constituents of atoms are all fermions. On a deeper level, protons and neutrons are built of quarks, which are also fermions. Bosons carry the forces of nature; the most familiar are photons–particles of light–which are manifestations of the electromagnetic force. There are other differences between fermions and bosons, but we don’t need to worry about them for now; if you want more information, I wrote a far longer and more detailed explanationat my personal blog.

Q: What does it mean to be a “manifestation” of a force?

A: The ocean is a huge body of water (duh), but it’s always in motion. You can think of waves as manifestations of the ocean’s motion. The electromagnetic field (which includes stuff like magnets, electric currents, and light) manifests itself in waves, too, but those waves only come in distinct indivisible chunks, which we call photons. The Higgs boson is also a manifestation of a special kind of interaction.

Q: How many kinds of forces are there?

A: There are four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, and the two nuclear forces, creatively named the weak and strong forces. Gravity and electromagnetism are the forces of our daily lives: Gravity holds us to Earth, and electromagnetism does nearly everything else. If you drop a pencil, gravity makes it fall, but your holding the pencil is electromagnetic, based on how the atoms in your hand interact with the atoms in the pencil. The nuclear forces, on the other hand, are very short-range forces and are involved in (wow!) holding the nuclei of atoms together.

Q: OK, so what does the Higgs boson have to do with the fundamental forces?

A: All the forces of nature have certain things in common, so physicists from Einstein on have tried to describe them all as aspects of a single force. This is called unification, and to this day, nobody has successfully accomplished it. (Sounds like a metaphor for something or other.) However, unification of electromagnetism with the weak force was accomplished, yielding the electroweak theory. Nevertheless, there was a problem in the first version: It simply didn’t work if electrons, quarks, and the like had mass. Because particles obviously do have mass, something was wrong. That’s where the Higgs field and Higgs boson come in. Scottish physicist Peter Higgs and his colleagues figured out that if there was a new kind of field, it could explain both why the electromagnetic force and weak force behave differently and provide mass to the particles.

Q: Wait, I thought mass is fundamental?

A: One of the insights of modern physics is that particles aren’t just single objects: They are defined by interactions. Properties of particles emerge out of their interactions with fields, and mass is one of those properties. (That makes unifying gravity with the other forces challenging, which is a story for another day!) Some particles are more susceptible to interacting with the Higgs. An analogy I read (and apologies for not remembering where I read it) says it’s like different shoes in the snow. A snowshoe corresponds to a low-mass particle: very little snow mass sticks to it. A high-mass particle interacts strongly with the Higgs field, so that’s like hiking boots with big treads: lots of places for the snow to stick. Electrons are snowshoes, but the heaviest quarks are big ol’ hiking boots.

Q: Are there Higgs bosons running around all over the place, just like there are photons everywhere?

A: No, and it’s for the same reason we don’t see the bosons that carry the weak force. Unlike photons, the Higgs boson and the weak force bosons (known as the W and Z bosons — our particle physics friends run out of creative names sometime) are relatively massive. Many massive particles decay quickly into less massive particles, so the Higgs boson is short lived.

Q: So how do you make a Higgs boson?

A: The Higgs field is everywhere (like The Force in Star Wars), but to make a Higgs boson, you have to provide enough energy to make its mass. Einstein’s famous formula E = mc^2 tells us that mass and energy are interchangeable: If you have enough energy (in the right environment), you can make new particles. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Europe and the Tevatron at Fermilab in the United States are two such environments: Both accelerate particles to close to the speed of light and smash them together. If the collisions are right, they can make a Higgs boson.

Q: Is this new particle actually the Higgs boson then?

A: That’s somewhat tricky. While the Standard Model predicts the existence of a Higgs boson, it doesn’t tell us exactly what the mass should be, which means the energy to make one isn’t certain. However, we have nice limits on the mass the Higgs could have, based on the way it interacts with other particles like the other bosons and quarks. This new particle falls in that range and has other characteristics that say “Higgs.” This is why a lot of physics writers, including me, will say the new particle is probably the Higgs boson, but we’ll hedge our bets until more data come in. The particle is real, though: four different detectors (ATLAS and CMS at CERN, and DZero and CDF at Fermilab) all saw the same particle with the same mass.

Q: But I’m asking you as a friend: Is this the Higgs boson?

A: I admit: a perverse part of me hopes it’s something different. If it isn’t the Higgs boson, it’s something unexpected and may not correspond to anything predicted in any theory! That’s an exciting and intriguing result. However, my bet is that this is the Higgs boson, and many (if not most) of my colleagues would agree.

Q: What’s all this talk about the “God particle”?

A: Physicists HATE it when the Higgs boson is called “the God particle.” Yes, the particle is important, but it’s not godlike. The term came from the title of a book by physicist Leon Lederman; he originally wanted to call it “The Goddamn Particle”, since the Higgs boson was so frustrating to find, but his editor forced a change.

Q: Why should I, as a non-physicist, care about this stuff?

A: While it’s unlikely that the discovery of the Higgs boson will affect you directly, particle colliders like the LHC and Tevatron have spurred development of new technologies. However, that’s not the primary reason to study this. By learning how particles work, we learn about the Universe, including how we fit into it. The search for new particles meshes with cosmology (my own area): It reveals the nature of the Universe we inhabit. I find a profound romance in exploring our Universe, learning about our origins, and discovering things that are far from everyday. If we limit the scope of exploration only to things that have immediate practical use, then we might as well give up on literature, poetry, movies, religion, and the like right now.

Q: If this is the Higgs boson, is that the final piece of the puzzle? Is particle physics done?

A: No, and in fact bigger mysteries remain. The Higgs boson is predicted by the Standard Model, but we know 80% of the mass of the Universe is in the form of dark matter, stuff that doesn’t emit or absorb light. We don’t know exactly what dark matter is, but it’s probably a particle — which means particle colliders may be able to figure it out. Hunting for an unknown particle is harder than looking for one we are pretty sure exists. Finding the Higgs (if I may quote myself) is like The Hobbit: It’s a necessary tale, but the bigger epic of The Lord of the Rings is still to come.

The name is irresistible: Cocktail Party Physics. What Jennifer Ouellette writes is also irresistible, especially if you have a love of physics with or without a deep grasp of it. What’s not to love about this intersection of popular culture, physics, and “the world at large” from someone who writes popular science books and describes herself as a “recovering English major”? That intersection has led Ouellette to expound on the scientific overlaps between a Stradivarius violin and CT scans. She’s written a wonderful long read on “science meets ghosts” that will make you a believer in one over the other. Whether it’s ghosts or more earthbound topics such as the relationship between Woody Woodpecker and football, Ouellette weaves the promised tapestry of the pop culture and physical science worlds.This year, Ouellette also bravely helmed the upcoming Open Lab 2011 book, serving as editor and managing a pile of hundreds of worthy entries into a sharp presentation of 51 of the best in science blogging for the year. A huge task, but the outcome is an overview of some of the best science writing on the web. Ouellette’s books include The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas, and Survive a Zombie Outbreak (phew) and The Physics of the Buffyverse. Also, you had better conduct yourself well around her because she’s got a black belt in jujitsu, which I imagine she’s unafraid to use, and she’s married to a Time Lord. Or THE Time Lord, Caltech physicist and writer, Sean M. Carroll. Ouellette tweets under the nom d’Twitter JenLucPiquant, whom she describes as a “faux-French avatar with a penchant for gourmet cuisine, high fashion, existential angst, and dabbling in amateur scientific research of questionable import.” Nothing about her blog or other writing is questionable, and we urge a visit. Prepare to stay awhile.

In this edition of Notable Women in Science, I focus on women working in physics, typically traditional physics rather than astrophysics. There is no particular reason to make this distinction other than it allows me to choose a small group of women to highlight within a parameter set. These women are listed in no particular order.

Vera E. Kistiakowsky spent much of her career as a professor at MIT. Born in 1928, she received her A.B. from Mt. Holyoke College in 1948 and her Ph.D. from the University of California – Berkeley in 1952, both degrees in chemistry. Her chosen career stemmed from advice from her father to support herself and not depend on another person to support her. Her father was a respected physical chemistry professor at Harvard and his support in her chosen activities was instrumental to her success. She entered college at the age of 15, choosing a pre-med major. She changed to chemistry due to Mt. Holyoke’s extraordinary female faculty at the time. While her degrees are in chemistry, her studies and research were physics intensive.Graduating with her Ph.D. before her newly married husband hindered her initial job opportunities. She had several positions before eventually settling into a professorship at MIT. During her tenure at MIT, she was scientifically prolific with 86 technical publications as well as highly active in feminist activities, including organizing for the National Organization of Women (NOW), Women In Science and Engineering (WISE), the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), and an ad hoc committee in the American Physical Society (APS) on women physicists to name a few.

Helen Thom Edwards is recognized for her work with the Tevatron. She was born in 1936 and received both her B.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1957 and 1966, respectively. Her interest in science was outside that of her family’s interests, so she was used to paving her own way. Her technical and mechanical acumen served her well as a group leader at the Fermilab. Dr. Edwards is a team player and insists upon acknowledging the contributions of her colleagues in her and Fermilab’s success.

[Edited, 11/26/12, 14:43 ET]: Vandana Shiva was trained in physics and the philosophy of science and now works as an environmentalist, achieving considerable global prominence. She was born in 1952 and, according to most sources, earned a B.A. in physics, a master’s in philosophy of science, and a Ph.D. in physics. When she began her training as a nuclear scientist, she encountered a hostile environment, which caused her to emigrate west. Her experiences led her to become a prominent (and extremely controversial) environmentalist and into the position of Director at the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resources Policy in Dehradun, India. She writes books and publishes articles in the area of environmentalism. [ETA: As a commenter notes below, Shiva also has been embroiled in controversy and accused of taking an anti-scientific stance over her assertions about “terminator seeds.”]

Born in 1954, she received her B.S. and Ph.D. at Vrije University in Brussels in 1975 and 1980, respectively. Her interest in science and math was nurtured by her parents who also encouraged her independence. In 1984, she received the Louis Empain prize for physics for the work she accomplished before the age of 29. The prize was followed by tenure in her position at the Free University Brussels. She moved into a position at Rutgers and also worked at the AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1992, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship followed by the Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society in 1994. She has continued to receive honors and ovations to this day.

Janet M. Conrad researches neutrinos. She was born in 1963 and received her B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1985, her M.Sc. from Oxford University in 1987, and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1993. After a postdoctoral stint at Columbia University, she moved into a professor position there. In 2008, she moved to MIT. She has received many awards, including an NSF CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, and the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award from the APS. She can be found involved in research and teaching at MIT, as well as communicating science to scientists and general audiences around the country.

Reka Albert blends cross and inter-disciplinary expertise. She received her B.S. and M.S. from the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania and her Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame in 2001. After a postdoctoral position at the University of Minnesota, she joined the faculty at Pennsylvania State University, where she is currently a professor in the physics department. She has received several awards for her work, including a Sloan Research Foundation Fellowship, an NSF Career Award, and the Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award.

Louis Empain Prize is awarded every five years to a young Belgian scientists on the basis of work done before the age of 29.

MacArthur Foundation Fellowship is awarded to individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.The Steele Prize is awarded for cumulative work of mathematical contribution to the field.The NSF Career Award is a highly competitive grant awarded to early career scientists.Alfred P. Sloan Fellowships are awarded to distinguished scholars with high potential for impact in their respective fields.The Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award recognizes outstanding achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career.The opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily agree or conflict with those of the DXS editorial team and contributors.

[Today we have a wonderful guest post from Marie-Claire Shanahan, continuing the conversation about what makes someone a good role model in science. This post first appeared at Shanahan’s science education blog, Boundary Vision, and she has graciously agreed to let us share it here, too. Shanahan is an Associate Professor of Science Education and Science Communication at the University of Alberta where she researches social aspects of science such as how and why students decide to pursue science degrees. She teaches courses in science teaching methods, scientific language and sociology of science. Marie-Claire is also a former middle and high school science and math teacher and was thrilled last week when one of her past sixth grade students emailed to ask for advice on becoming a science teacher. She blogs regularly about science education at Boundary Visionand about her love of science and music at The Finch & Pea.]What does it mean to be a good role model? Am I a good role model? Playing around with kids at home or in the middle of a science classroom, adults often ask themselves these questions, especially when it come to girls and science. But despite having asked them many times myself, I don’t think they’re the right questions.Studying how role models influence students shows a process that is much more complicated than it first seems. In some studies, when female students interact with more female professors and peers in science, their own self-concepts in science can be improved [1]. Others studies show that the number of female science teachers at their school seems to have no effect [2].Finding just the right type of role model is even more challenging. Do role models have to be female? Do they have to be of the same race as the students? There is often an assumption that even images and stories can change students’ minds about who can do science. If so, does it help to show very feminine women with interests in science like thescience cheerleaders? The answer in most of these studies is, almost predictably, yes and no.Diana Betz and Denise Sekaquaptewa’s recent study “My Fair Physicist: Feminine Math and Science role models demotivate young girls” seems to muddy the waters even further, suggesting that overly feminine role models might actually have a negative effect on students. [3] The study caught my eye when PhD studentSara Callori wrote about it and shared that it made her worry about her own efforts to be a good role model.Betz and Sekaquaptewa worked with two groups of middle school girls. With the first group (144 girls, mostly 11 and 12 years old) they first asked the girls for their three favourite school subjects and categorized any who said science or math as STEM-identified (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). All of the girls then read articles about three role models. Some were science/math role models and some were general role models (i.e., described as generally successful students). The researchers mixed things even further so that some of the role models were purposefully feminine (e.g., shown wearing pink and saying they were interested in fashion magazines) and others were supposedly neutral (e.g., shown wearing dark colours and glasses and enjoying reading).* There were feminine and neutral examples for both STEM and non-STEM role models. After the girls read the three articles, the researchers asked them about their future plans to study math and their current perceptions of their abilities and interest in math.**For the most part, the results were as expected. The STEM-identified girls showed more interest in studying math in the future (not really a surprise since they’d already said math and science were their favourite subjects) and the role models didn’t seem to have any effect. Their minds were, for the most part, already made up.What about the non-STEM identified girls, did the role models help them? It’s hard to tell exactly because the researchers didn’t measure the girls’ desire to study math before reading about the role models. It seems though that reading about feminine science role models took away from their desire to study math both in the present and the future. Those who were non-STEM identified and read about feminine STEM role models rated their interest significantly lower than other non-STEM identified girls who read about neutral STEM role models and about non-STEM role models. A little bit surprising was the additional finding that the feminine role models also seemed to lower STEM-identified girls current interest in math (though not their future interest).The authors argue that the issue is unattainability. Other studies have shown that role models can sometimes be intimidating. They can actually turn students off if they seem too successful, such that their career or life paths seem out of reach, or if students can write them off as being much more talented or lucky than themselves. Betz and Sekaquaptewa suggest that the femininity of the role models made them seem doubly successful and therefore even more out of the students’ reach.

The second part of the study was designed to answer this question but is much weaker in design so it’s difficult to say what it adds to the discussion. They used a similar design but with only the STEM role models, feminine and non-feminine (and only 42 students, 20% of whom didn’t receive part of the questionnaire due to an error). The only difference was instead of asking about students interest in studying math they tried to look at the combination of femininity and math success by asking two questions:

“How likely do you think it is that you could be both as successful in math/science AND as feminine or girly as these students by the end of high school?” (p. 5)

“Do being good at math and being girly go together?” (p. 5)

Honestly, it’s at this point that the study loses me. The first question has serious validity issues (and nowhere in the study is the validity of the outcome measures established). First, there are different ways to interpret the question and for students to decide on a rating. A low rating could mean a student doesn’t think they’ll succeed in science even if they really want to. A low rating could also mean that a student has no interest in femininity and rejects the very idea of being successful at both. These are very different things and make the results almost impossible to interpret.

Second these “successes” are likely different in kind. Succeeding in academics is time dependent and it makes sense to ask young students if they aspire to be successful in science. Feminine identity is less future oriented and more likely to be seen as a trait rather a skill that is developed. It probably doesn’t make sense to ask students if they aspire to be more feminine, especially when femininity has been defined as liking fashion magazines and wearing pink.

Question: Dear student, do you aspire to grow up to wear more pink?

Answer (regardless of femininity): Um, that’s a weird question.

With these questions, they found that non-STEM identified girls rated themselves as unlikely to match the dual success of the feminine STEM role models. Because of the problems with the items though, it’s difficult to say what that means. The authors do raise an interesting question about unattainability, though, and I hope they’ll continue to look for ways to explore it further.

So, should graduate students like Sara Callori be worried? Like lots of researchers who care deeply about science, Sara expressed a commendable and strong desire to make a contribution to inspiring young women in physics (a field that continues to have a serious gender imbalance). She writes about her desire to encourage young students and be a good role model:

When I made the decision to go into graduate school for physics, however, my outlook changed. I wanted to be someone who bucked the stereotype: a fashionable, fun, young woman who also is a successful physicist. I thought that if I didn’t look like the stereotypical physicist, I could be someone that was a role model to younger students by demonstrating an alternative to the stereotype of who can be a scientist. …This study also unsettled me on a personal level. I’ve long desired to be a role model to younger students. I enjoy sharing the excitement of physics, especially with those who might be turned away from the subject because of stereotypes or negative perceptions. I always thought that by being outgoing, fun, and yes, feminine would enable me to reach students who see physics as the domain of old white men. These results have me questioning myself, which can only hurt my outreach efforts by making me more self conscious about them. They make me wonder if I have to be disingenuous about who I am in order to avoid being seen as “too feminine” for physics.

To everyone who has felt this way, my strong answer is: NO, please don’t let this dissuade you from outreach efforts. Despite results like this, when studies look at the impact of role models in comparison to other influences, relationships always win over symbols. The role models that make a difference are not the people that kids read about in magazines or that visit their classes for a short period of time. The role models, really mentors, that matter are people in students’ lives: teachers, parents, peers, neighbours, camp leaders, and class volunteers. And for the most part it doesn’t depend on their gender or even their educational success. What matters is how they interact with and support the students. Good role models are there for students, they believe in their abilities and help them explore their own interests.

My advice? Don’t worry about how feminine or masculine you are or if you have the right characteristics to be a role model, just get out there and get to know the kids you want to encourage. Think about what you can do to build their self-confidence in science or to help them find a topic they are passionate about. When it comes to making the most of the interactions you have with science students, there are a few tips for success (and none of them hinge on wearing or not wearing pink):

§ Be supportive and encouraging of students’ interest in science. Take their ideas and aspirations seriously and let them know that you believe in them. This turns out to be by far one of the most powerfulinfluences in people pursuing science. If you do one thing in your interactions with students, make it this.

§Share with students why you love doing science. What are the benefits of being a scientist such as contributing to improving people’s lives or in solving difficult problems? Students often desire careers that meet these characteristics of personal satisfaction but don’t always realize that being a scientist can be like that.

§Don’t hide the fact that there are gender differences in participation in some areas of science (especially physics and engineering). Talk honestly with students about it, being sure to emphasize that differences in ability are NOT the reason for the discrepancies. Talk, for example, about evidence that girls are not given as many opportunities to explore and play with mechanical objects and ask them for their ideas about why some people choose these sciences and others don’t.There are so many ways to encourage and support students in science, don’t waste time worrying about being the perfect role model. If you’re genuinely interested in taking time to connect with students, you are already the right type.

__________________________________________________________

* There are of course immediate questions about how well supported these are as feminine characteristics but I’m willing to allow the researchers that they could probably only choose a few characteristics and had to try to find things that would seem immediately feminine to 11-12 year olds. I still think it’s a shallow treatment of femininity, one that disregards differences in cultural and class definitions of femininity. (And I may or may not still be trying to sort out my feelings about being their gender neutral stereotype, says she wearing grey with large frame glasses and a stack of books beside her).

**The researchers unfortunately did not distinguish between science and math, using them interchangeably despite large differences in gender representation and connections to femininity between biological sciences, physical sciences, math and various branches of engineering.

Today’s guest post comes to us courtesy of Sara Callori. She is a physics Ph.D. candidate at Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY. In the lab, Sara loves working with x-rays and even has a Bragg diffraction tattoo. She would eventually like to focus on science teaching and outreach because she loves to get people to stop being intimidated when they think of physics.

This may sound odd, but I never aspired to be feminine until I became a physicist. I grew up playing sports and getting short haircuts. There were phases when my mother would have had to tranquilize me to get me into a dress (this was infrequent as my tom-boy qualities seemed to come from her own lack of femininity). As I got older, I started to develop some style, but it was more comfort over fashion, especially when it came down to 8 am classes in undergrad. When I made the decision to go into graduate school for physics, however, my outlook changed. I wanted to be someone who bucked the stereotype: a fashionable, fun, young woman who also is a successful physicist. I thought that if I didn’t look like the stereotypical physicist, I could be someone that was a role model to younger students by demonstrating an alternative to the stereotype of who can be a scientist.

This week researchers at the University of Michigan released findings that dashed my hopes for being the cool physicist that younger girls want to emulate. In a paper titled “My Fair Physicist? Feminine Math and Science Role Models Demotivate Young Girls”, psychology researchers Diana Betz and Denise Sekaquaptewa found that women presented as both successful in science/technology/engineering/math (STEM) careers and possessing “feminine traits” negatively affected how young girls viewed science and math.

When I read the summary of these findings, I was dismayed. I became even more disappointed when I read that for feminine traits they used “wearing make-up and pink clothes, liking fashion magazines”. Gender-neutral women were given traits such as “wearing dark-colored clothes and glasses, likes reading”.

The assignment of these traits bothered me on several levels. The most immediate was how narrow the study’s concept of “feminine” seemed. If you asked me if I considered myself feminine, I would say yes. I like colorful dresses during the summer and own too many purses — but I also wear glasses, play rugby, and have tattoos. Most real-life women, including women in STEM, also possess traits from a mix of “feminine” and “gender-neutral” categories. It is important to remember these are the women younger students will encounter when they are introduced to female scientists.

Additionally, the researchers’ idea of “feminine” seems to play into another set of negative stereotypes common in popular culture, what you might call the “Legally Blonde” scenario. In the movie, the protagonist is a woman who could easily be described as “wearing make-up and pink clothes, liking fashion magazines”. The story builds around how someone with those traits is perceived as unintelligent and unsuited for work that requires a strong academic background. While throughout the story, the main character shows she isn’t just a pretty face, there are still many people who will associate these types of feminine traits with unintelligence.

This association is at odds with women in STEM fields and it makes me wonder if some of the girls’ negative associations of feminine STEM professionals were due to those traits being perceived as incompatible with women in STEM careers. (To briefly address the finding which showed that femininity could be compatible with overall school success, the “success” descriptions seem to be generic enough that they could be interpreted as encompassing non-academic accomplishments as well; e.g. being well liked by classmates or elected to the student council.)

This study also unsettled me on a personal level. I’ve long desired to be a role model to younger students. I enjoy sharing the excitement of physics, especially with those who might be turned away from the subject because of stereotypes or negative perceptions. I always thought that by being outgoing, fun, and yes, feminine would enable me to reach students who see physics as the domain of old white men. These results have me questioning myself, which can only hurt my outreach efforts by making me more self conscious about them. They make me wonder if I have to be disingenuous about who I am in order to avoid being seen as “too feminine” for physics.

Overall, that this study could be useful as a springboard for improving discussion and ideas for motivating girls in STEM. However, I think that their idea of “feminine” is too narrow to apply these findings broadly. Rather than work in the black and white “feminine” vs. “gender neutral” cases, why not build further ideas, research, and programs around much more realistic types of women who are currently succeeding in many STEM fields.

These views are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily either reflect or disagree with those of the

The above courtesy of xkcd, a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

If you had to name the top scientists of the 20th century, any reasonable list must include Polish-French scientist Marie Sklodowska Curie. She won the Nobel Prize twice, a feat only matched by three others: once in physics (in 1903) for her work in radioactivity, a term she coined; and once in chemistry (in 1911) for her discovery of the two chemical elements radium and polonium. Her first prize was shared with her husband Pierre, himself an excellent physicist. She went on hiking trips with Einstein, who complained that she was too energetic in her walking style, as he preferred to dawdle. She was also the only female participant in the great Solvay Conference of 1927, which included many of the great innovators in modern physics. The element curium (96 on the periodic table) and several research institutes are named for her.How can you not admire Curie? Let’s face it: she kicks all of our butts.

It’s easy to think of her as one of the Great Woman Scientists, but without a doubt she was a greater scientist than most of us can ever hope to be, male or female. At the same time, anyone thinking they aren’t great because they aren’t a Madame Curie should stop worrying. One side effect of tokenism — letting one or two representatives from non-majority groups stand in for their entire group — is that it truly sets standards far higher than are reasonable. Curie was an outstanding scientist by anyContinue reading →